Learning how to use Project Vasari

Basic Steps to learn how to use Project Vasari

1)As first step you have to choose the location  you want to analyze. By clickying on "SET LOCATION" on the right side of the page you will have to type on the blank string, (on the top of the window), the address you have choosen and thanks to Google Maps System you will get a view of your area. You can decide whether you want to zoom more or less on your location by using the zoom regulator (+ or -).

2)Once you have done the first step you have to click on "IMPORT SITE IMAGE" button and Vasari will load your image and set it on your work page.

3)Now you can get started. Choose the building you want to study and go to "MODEL-CREATE MASS". Then click on "LINE" and highlight your surface (pay attention to link all your ending points, otherwise you won't get a surface but only a few lines that the program will not allow you to extrude in the future).

4)Now you have your 2d building, you can make it 3d by clickying twice on each surface you have created and then by elevating it as much as you need to (for example 15 meters, 18 meters, etc.).

5) Before doing anything else, if you are sure to have done all things you wanted to do, click on "FINISH MASS".

6) Now, if you want to be more precise, you can go to "MASS FLOORS" and set as many floors as you want (one, two, three, etc.)

7)You may want to have a particular view of your project, so go to  "SHOW MASS" and select the way you want your project to be seen by each others by choosing different types of view  (for example click on "show mass surfaces" and see how it looks more realistic; though you may like having a simple kind of view and then you can choose "show mass form" and it will look like a simple white volume).

8) The second phase of your work will get started by switching the "Sun paths" and "Shadows" on (the icons are on the left hand bottom of your page).

9) Now by choosing a precise date and hour you can see how the sun influences your creation. As you can see in the images attached, as date I have choosen the 8th of March and as hour 03.34 pm and highlighted one of the courtyard surfaces shaded. (You can see on the real photo how it was in reality). On this purpose it would be interesting choosing different periods of the year to see how shadows change and how your building is influenced by them. For example, I was curios to see how the courtyards will look like if i had choosen another month, so I went to "Sun settings" again and changed my previous options with new ones : date the 8th of December, hour 03.34 pm. It's clear that in March my courtyards were more lightened and in Decemeber the shadows are much more longer and even the interior of the courtyard is shaded. So, I decided to see what would happened in summer time, I changed the month from December to June and suddenly my two buildings were shining exteriorly, the shadows were much more shorter on the ground. Anyway I've noticed that the courtyard has got the interior surfaces always a little bit shaded, dark, so it is a typological choice that may present some problems speaking of the sun influence.

You can try as you like and test how everything changes if you set different seasons, days, hours, etc..

10) If you want to go deep in the program you can go to ANALYZE and use the default options and see, for example, how the winds virtually influence your building.